


amour/faim

by COBALT (nacaratskies)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-typical being compelled by a fear monster to hurt the ones you love, Cuddling & Snuggling, Does this count as unreliable narrator, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, No beta we die like archival assistants, Peter’s a real dick in this one y’all…, and by that I mean it is fluff and then very abruptly it is angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23716978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nacaratskies/pseuds/COBALT
Summary: In which Elias makes the mistake of being afraid of the Lonely in Peter’s presence.—But wouldn’t it be easier to feed on Elias?Elias, warm Elias, clever wry Elias, he wouldn't feed on Elias, would he? Certainly not yesterday when it had been in question if it would even work. But Elias has softened, has opened. The temptation pulls him in.Maybe he'll just take a little peek, just take what's there, and Elias will never have to know.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 21
Kudos: 112





	amour/faim

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning y’all. Peter’s terrible in this one, I mean really bad. Manipulative, emotionally abusive, invades privacy and is generally a malevolent and terrible partner. If that’s not ur jam don’t read, please take care of yourself. 
> 
> I’m a big fan of soft lonelyeyes honestly but I’m incapable of writing anything happy so uhhh fuck it 2am angst fic *shoves this at u*

The night is dark and warm and quiet. Peter closes his eyes and takes a short breath, smelling hair pomade and fabric softener. He feels Elias shift under his fingers, skin soft and warm, flesh firm underneath, and feels the delight of warm bodies, company to accentuate the cool and quiet of the night like the sting and heavy sweetness of a fine red wine.

Vaguely, he wonders how late it is. He thinks of the window in Elias' flat, overlooking the city, how the gold-red-blue lights twinkle in the night, how in the morning the air will glitter with hoarfrost and the breath of the crowds, how empty the streets are now. He stretches his mind out. Even now there are people walking who are afraid of being alone and people who relish it; there are people newly alone and feeling the fresh ache of it, people living with the same hole in their hearts, and by the quiet grace of the Lonely Peter can feel it all.

Peter is safe and warm, however, the Lonely chased from the room for tonight, and he has one arm around the one person he's never been able to wrap words around his feelings for. He focuses in on Elias, on their twin warmth, mutual security. He takes another gentle breath, another, inhales the scent of shampoo, of cologne, and beneath it the subtle dusky smell of skin. His thoughts turn in wider and shakier circles, colours brightening, sense crumbling. In the back of his mind he smiles a contented smile, aware that he's dozing off at last.

It's subtle, very subtle at first, just a little tickle, hidden behind the Loneliness of the city. Still, Peter knows the flavour of Elias' mind, and he slips effortlessly back into wakefulness when he notices it, eyes sliding open in the dark. There it is, again, and there, a touch of fear, of ache.

Elias shifts, presses himself closer into Peter, pulls his arm around him tighter, faking an imperceptible mumble as if he's only a shifting sleeper, and with a rush of delight Peter realizes Elias doesn't know that he can feel it. But Peter knows, yes, he knows. Now that he is focusing he can feel Elias' mind.

Elias is afraid. He's thinking about their little spat earlier this evening and he's thinking about how it's possible they're not so compatible. He's thinking what if this doesn't blow over, what if it worsens? He's thinking maybe Peter's as indifferent to him as the sea to a drowning sailor. He's thinking maybe his precious Peter doesn't love him back, and he is angry at himself for loving Peter, and he is _afraid_.

There's a part of Peter that knows he should want to stroke his shoulder, to reassure him, bury a kiss in the hollow of his neck and send him to sleep warm and comforted and satisfied. But he doesn't. He's just hungry. All of a sudden he's realizing that he foolishly let the warmth burn away his meals and the Forsaken is tugging on him, making Elias' touch burn, and he is so, so hungry, he needs to go, to get a cab and go anywhere, anywhere, he needs to prey, to feed. He presses his lips together with a twinge of annoyance. Hunger is always an unpleasant feeling to disturb one in the middle of the night.

Peter's never been anything but hungry from the moment he'd first been left on his own, he thinks, eating and eating and eating the loneliness of others and when that failed gnawing at his own intestines like a cannibalistic dragon, like a rotting ouroboros, every bite worsening the pangs, every touch of relief only making him a slave to that ache in his bones, aching like soreness before a rain that never comes, aching like the touch of ice for too long on bare skin, aching like the hunger of a week’s starvation, feeling his heart slowly putrefy in his chest with every second spent alone.

He could tell Elias. He could tap him on the shoulder and tell him he was so hungry it hurt, and Elias would find him the loneliest man in London and send him off to meet him like a present, and he would be waiting for Peter when Peter got back, as satiated as he ever could be. Elias would understand.

But wouldn’t it be easier to feed on Elias?

Elias, warm Elias, clever wry Elias, he wouldn't feed on Elias, would he? Certainly not yesterday when it had been in question if it would even work. But Elias has softened, has opened. The temptation pulls him in.

Maybe he'll just take a little peek, just take what's there, and Elias will never have to know. Elias isn't the only one who can See and Know and Feel, after all. Entities can See all that feeds them. Avatars can see what they please. Peter can see Elias' Lonely memories, can hear his Lonely thoughts and feel his Lonely feelings. He can dive in and get lost in Elias' Loneliness. He really, really shouldn't. But he does.

Elias' insides smell sickly sweet, thick with the dust and cloying rot of two hundred years of disconnect, missing his friends, his parents, missing a time so far gone by that only a few remember it, missing his _home_. Elias misses the Magnus household, cold as it was, misses the wide and rambling grounds, misses his long-dead sister, even. He misses the old oak trees, the university grounds, the life he'd had at the start, he misses the styles of the clothing, the shops, the smells and feelings. He misses the rush of discovery. He misses his own skin, misses his own _name_ , whispers of _sweet Jonah, dearest Jonah_ against his skin.

It's so sweet, the missing, aged like wine, like cheese, that exquisite pain so sweetened and dulled and dusty that it hardly reads as pain at all. He fits in just fine here in the modern world with all its cars and phones, cold blue light and flatscreen HD televisions, but it is Lonely to think of what he's left behind in the past, so far away it's a different life. The memories stay locked in his chest. He hasn't spoken his sister's name in decades. He’s not sure he even remembers it anymore.

Sometimes Elias feels lost, though he would never tell anyone. Sometimes he wants to go back so much it hurts, to take another walk in the Magnus family estate, to walk the streets of London in 1798, he wants Peter to call him Jonah, and Peter wants to drink that wanting, wants to pull the wishing and missing until it comes free in his hands like cotton candy. But that would be terribly cruel and awfully foolish. He shouldn't, really. Not to Elias. Not now. But he is so, so hungry.

Peter aches, but he tries, _God_ , he tries, he tries so hard it hurts. 

Still, though, he doesn't try for very long.

His willpower burns quick, but once it is gone, he begins to scheme even quicker. The little guilty pleasure he'd thought of initially is rapidly ballooning out of proportion but Peter starts small. He can't overdo it. He's so hungry, but he has to start slow. Tonight he will be pathetic. Tomorrow he will be warm, then he will be cold. And with luck Elias will be afraid. More food for the empty. More food for the cold and the hollow and the hole that calls itself Peter Lukas. Elias' warm skin under his fingers is no longer something safe, something quiet. Now he is hunting. Just like any other Hunt for his god, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes a personal touch, it takes subtlety. He'll twist Elias Bouchard until he's ready to break, then hollow him out with a kiss. But not yet.

Peter stirs, just a bit, and returns his attention to the room. While he'd been absorbed, the Lonely had flooded the once warm and friendly air, engulfing the two of them completely in a cloud of shimmering empty. Like a magician preparing a trick, Peter pulls it even closer, wrapping it around him until it penetrates the sheets. He feels his body temperature drop sharply by a few degrees. Then, with a deliberate mask of fear, he inhales sharply and flinches, pulling away from Elias.

"Peter?" Elias murmurs, stirring, turning his head. If Peter looks closely he can see his eyes flashing green in the dark like a cat. "Is everything alright?"

"Fine, I'm fine, just... a nightmare." Peter takes a short breath, sitting up and putting a hand on his chest. The cold and damp presses into his bare skin and he shivers. "Sorry about the cold."

"Don't worry about it. Are you sure you're quite alright?"

Normally when he accidentally brings the Lonely inside Elias is angry. Now he is concerned, the forgiveness thoughtless and instantaneous. Exquisite concern, delicious concern. Oh, Elias, Elias. An outer shell so hard to get clumsy eager fingers around but he'd finally ripped it open, tender and fleshy meat spilling across his fingers like crab, like lobster, so delicate and complex and tentative, delectable like caviar, like clams, like the finest, most expensive and most utterly poisonous fugu, Elias' feelings are hidden and careful but only of the finest and most luxurious quality.

“Peter?”

Elias opens like a flower to him, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed, and Peter digs into the tender flesh of that concern, gorges himself on the extravagant richness of it. Such a subtle emotion, concern, not normally worth the bother. The flavour has grown complex with age and all Elias' hang-ups, through, and there's a winelike flavour to it, something that feels strange in his gut, something uniquely Elias, uniquely personal and satiating like he's never tasted before. He wants more, more, more.

"Peter.”

 _Pace yourself, Peter_ , he reminds himself as the Lonely curls around him and feeds, _you've yet a ways to go with this one_. A tendril reaches for his arms, his head, his throat, dissolving him into the air with its endless hunger, and he feels himself start to come undone.

" _Peter_!” A note of alarm now. Elias leans forward and grabs him like it'll keep him from drifting away.

He hisses as if it burns and Elias quickly draws his hands back. "I'm fine! Don't touch me, I'm okay, just—" Peter takes a deep breath for effect, blending out his edges into the Lonely until he half-becomes the air around him. "Elias," he says, "if I ever get lost—I mean, really, really _lost_ —you'd come look for me, wouldn't you?" He adds a little tremolo of fear at the end like delicate frosting on a wedding-cake, and reaches one half-disintegrated hand for Elias.

It's unclear if Elias really is being sincere when he quickly says, "Of course." Maybe he's just trying not to have Peter evaporate right there in his bed. Peter doesn't even know if Elias knows whether that's the truth. Either way the answer isn’t quite Lonely enough to see clearly.

"Thank you," Peter says quietly, reining it in before it gets to be too much, "thank you." He reaches out to cup his hand around Elias’ cheek and brushes the Lonely off a bit, soft edges resolving themselves until his skin is carved hard against the air once more. Melodrama is like a cake, he thinks, make it too rich and you can only have a spoonful at a time, but oh, what a spoonful it will be. He'll indulge himself some other time. For now he lets his hand slip off, leans forward and gives Elias a little peck on the lips.

"Peter," Elias says, breath warm on Peter’s cheek, "You'll never be alone unless you want to be. You know that."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Peter murmurs. For a moment he thinks that was a bit much, but pityheartacheworry crashes over Elias and he has to stifle the rising glee at the opulent feast laid before him, promising more pain, more fear, more of that exquisite twisting in Elias' gut to grip at and pull and eat and eat and eat, better than sleep, better than warmth, better than sex. "I'm sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep."

"Likewise." It would be brusque if it weren't for the heartbreakingly soft tone that Elias uses. Peter lies back down, shifts towards Elias and embraces him tight, holding him to his chest, letting the Lonely retreat back into the corners of the room.

For an hour or so Peter entertains himself by gripping Elias a bit tighter some moments as if the pull is worsening or pulling the Lonely in and making his body temperature drop significantly all at once, making Elias' concern light up like a magnesium flare.

Elias doesn't know how the Lonely works, not really, which makes it all the easier. He’s never bothered to learn the nature of it. For all he knows it could be a barely chained beast that works through the only half-willing Peter and not the fine trained instrument Peter knows it to be. In reality the Lonely is more like a swelling ocean. It makes Peter’s internal self into an external self. It is gentle, rises like the tide, and once it has someone, they do its work for it. Peter’s a master of the Lonely. He couldn’t drive it out if he wanted to, but somehow he’s still choosing to let it work through him, even if the choice is meaningless. Isn’t that always how it is, with Avatars?

Elias is concerned, now, not that Peter doesn't love him, but that he'll lose Peter to the Lonely. He doesn't know that he never had Peter in the first place. Well, he'll be wondering if Peter loves him soon enough. Peter has a hell of an act ready for tomorrow. He shivers with the ecstatic anticipation of it, and Elias' concern heightens to a nearly unbearable level.

At last, though, Elias’ worry falls away and he falls asleep, and Peter lets himself doze off as well. In the dark his arms tighten around Elias. He is not safety now, he is not warmth, not anymore. His cold fingers are tight against Elias' back, pressing into his skin. Peter Lukas is the bars of a gentle cage, spreading sticking frostbite to aching cold-burned skin, closed around a rare and exotic meal which was exceedingly difficult to prepare but is finally, finally, ready for the feast, and Elias is just the poor bastard who happened to be delicious.

Peter hates himself for giving in. He hates himself for being so hungry. He hates himself because while stopping is an option, he knows he will not stop. There is a hungry anticipation for more pain, more exquisite worry and conflict and pushing away.

He falls asleep intending to hurt the man in his arms, and there is nothing more Lonely than that.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to think that this is what sort of tipped them over the edge into their first divorce of many. Poor Elias. Didn’t realize that u simply cannot afford to be soft around people who serve eldritch fear gods of emotional distance. 
> 
> Wish I could write something sweet but unfortunately I am a Sad Bastard. Go check out the infamous twitter Big Boy Saga if u really want happy lonelyeyes content :)


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